


who will save you from your good intentions?

by unhappyrefrain



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: F/M, Post-Game(s), Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-09 02:53:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/769125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unhappyrefrain/pseuds/unhappyrefrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>either they didn't see it coming or they blindfolded themselves the whole way. // post-apocalyptic post-game post-everything, implied(?) togami/fukawa, six survivors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	who will save you from your good intentions?

**Author's Note:**

> i could do better.

Naegi has watched over Kirigiri for two nights already, sleepless and tossing, and he has listened to her breathing, resting his head only on her bleeding chest to make sure she is still alive. He has been telling her long, intricate stories-- he's never been much of a writer, much less able to weave his imagination out loud, but his tales seem to keep Kirigiri awake, his voice becoming breathy and cracked as he goes on. Now the stories have evolved into fairytales, and he knows that now is not the time to be telling Kirigiri Kyouko of worlds and happinesses that don't ( _and will never_ ) exist, but it's the best he can do to keep himself stable as well, because watching beautiful Kirigiri die has been tragedy enough for him.

At approximately two a.m. ( _he guesses_ ) Naegi turns Kirigiri over beneath the scavenged blankets, and she gives a soft sigh, in sleep.

"Kirigiri, stay awake," he whispers, and he sees Asahina rise from her sleeping bag across the clearing.

"She's okay, right," the girl calls, quiet so as not to wake Fukawa and Togami. Hagakure's already up, pacing around in the darkness in a nightmarish daze, and despite himself Naegi nods.

"She's just tired," he calls back, still looking down at Kirigiri's still face, her cheek cut and the blood dried over in a sickly copper tint, she looks content, and Naegi sighs. He had tried so hard, promised her he would throw himself on the line if anything happened, and still he watched helpless as a hungry, lean scavenger leapt from behind the ruins of the Family Mart and slashed at her with knives in both hands. When he had finally regained mobility and Togami had come running, stumbling over bricks and (surprisingly) pulling Fukawa by the hand behind him, Kirigiri was lying face down, blood soaking through her shirt.

He wonders aloud now what drives people like the vagabond to attack. Hunger? Fear, paranoia? Mental instability, maybe, from the trauma? Naegi wants to give this mystery to Kirigiri, for her to puzzle out, keep herself alive till it's solved, but he knows that in the end he's not going to be able to hold onto her for longer than this. He is, after all, just small and weak, worried for the future of this ravaged monochrome world, and the humanity of the remaining inhabitants, but really unable to do anything about it.

Kirigiri tosses, and Naegi pulls the blanket over both of them, his fingers combing the dried blood from her hair. He feels her hand on his side, and unwittingly he smiles.

\--

"Fukawa," Togami calls from the other side of the campsite, "keep that _voice_ of yours down. You're going to attract wanderers. Or vermin."

He says this with a nearly blank affect, just as condescending as he has always been. Naegi puzzles over how he can keep his composed, holier-than-thou air even when he's been reduced to the kind of wayward existence he would usually kick at. But he's _stable_ , and Naegi marvels at this too.

"I'll close it all the way if you want me to, _Byakuya-sama_ ," she breathes, and Asahina yells.

" _You two!_ Stop with the lovers' quarrels," she reprimands, and Naegi hears a small noise from Kirigiri, presumably a stifled laugh. "You sound like a married couple! Hagakure's trying to sleep."

"He's _al_ ways trying to sleep," Kirigiri murmurs, and Naegi reaches a hand down and runs it through her hair.

"Oh, and Kirigiri-san's awake too now," Asahina comments. "Yeah, _you two_! Keep it down."

\--

Later that afternoon Kirigiri stops breathing. 

Naegi wonders at first if she's just asleep, or it's not as noticeable as usual, but when he fumbles for her wrist and feels nothing save for what he recognizes as his own heartbeat, he collapses over Kirigiri and screams.

\-- 

"I wasn't ready for it," he explains later, and Asahina grips at her head. Naegi feels unexpectedly numb. "I mean I knew she was going to die, I kind of knew the whole time, but she stayed with us so long that I..." ( _was beginning to believe she would live? didn't want to admit it? attempted to forget? hoped? ah, that small light you thought you had, you brought in your talent and now you're left with this_ )

Fukawa's face down in the blanket, and her trembling shoulders show some kind of remorse. Togami looks unusually crestfallen.

"I did see her as... _significantly_ closer to my level," he sighs, pushing his glasses further up his nose. Then with a sudden flash of anger on his face, he takes them off, grips them in his right hand, and shatters them in his palm. Strangely, Fukawa doesn't notice. She's still buried in Kirigiri's blanket, and Asahina looks at Togami with a sort of sorry contempt.

"Don't make this worse," she sobs, pulling at her hair.

Naegi is frozen.

\-- 

By nighttime it has finally set in. Naegi rolls over and looks at Kirigiri's face. Her brown-stained hair covers the left half, where the gash in her cheek remained, and he chokes on a sob. It has started to drizzle, and Naegi calls Asahina to his side.

"Help me," he says, as direct as he can, but even now he can't believe that he refused to let her go for so long, that he denied himself the knowledge he needed to keep himself stable and moving forward.

Asahina says nothing, but stands up silently and helps Naegi cradle Kirigiri's body. They pick her up, the rain is burning, and not looking back they carry her, in step, to the ruins of a small burnt-out apartment complex. As they walk, with all she has left in her, Asahina screams, and Naegi watches as her face contorts with a sort of despair he hasn't seen since Sakura died, and it makes him want to vomit. He doesn't want to look despair in the eyes, ever again, and even though he doesn't believe it, he starts at Asahina, both angry at her for reminding him, and even so, just worried.

" _Don't!_ Don't... cry, okay? We're not doing the despair thing, not now," Naegi shouts as they finally enter the building, but Asahina's crying and he doesn't know how to make it better. "That's what Jun--" ( _and he catches himself, despair princess, don't even try to say her name by now)_  "the _mastermind_ wanted all along, right?! She wanted _despair_. Don't-- don't give her what she--"

"I don't _care_ ," Asahina screams, and Naegi realizes-- _she's right_. Enoshima Junko is dead, they have been living in a shell of a world, and there's no reason to deny her. Hope may not be lost altogether, but it's nowhere to be found right now, and Naegi wonders if he's just misplaced it or if it's gone for good, lost in the radioactive rain or the rubble or the burning toxic air they breathe.

And honestly, right now he doesn't feel up to finding it. He's lost his detective partner and his best friend, and his feet are tired and his eyes are wandering and that night he has tossing nightmares, Fukawa has been trying to shake him out of it and through his eyelids nearly sealed shut he can see that Togami is pulling her back but he's lost, he's _finally lost_ , and he knows it now, that someone had to save him from his good intentions, _and it wasn't ever going to be Kirigiri._


End file.
